The Georgia Center for Medical Robotics (GCMR) brings together people with expertise in several areas of medicine as well as technology development from the nano-scale to macro-scale. GCMR is highly interdisciplinary, comprised of people from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA), and Morehouse School of Medicine. One of its unique features is that it addresses the needs of both adult and pediatric populations. GCMR serves as a catalyst to advance research in medical robotics and form new research partnerships. GCMR is involved in a wide variety of research areas, including but not limited to: surgical robotics, pediatric robotics, image-guided interventions, imaging, rehabilitation and assistive robotics, prosthetics, human augmentation, and diagnostics and therapeutics spanning different length scales.

This Georgia Institute of Technology research center will develop processes and techniques for ensuring the consistent, low-cost, large-scale manufacture of high-quality living cells used in cell-based therapies. The therapies will be used for a variety of disorders such as cancer, lung fibrosis, autism, neuro-degenerative diseases, autoimmune disorders and spinal-cord injury – as well as in regenerative medicine. The work of the Center will help provide standardized production and quality testing for these living cells, which have great therapeutic potential. Standardized manufacturing techniques already exist for drug-based pharmaceuticals; the new center will help provide similar methods and standards for manufacturing therapeutic cells. Expected to be the first of its kind in the United States, the center will include a validation facility for good manufacturing practices in cell production.

There are an estimated 10,000 human single-gene disorders, which impose a significant burden on human health worldwide. The 5-year goals of this NDC are to develop a clinically applicable gene correction technology to treat single-gene disorders, and to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach in treating sickle cell disease (SCD) using a mouse model.